Mike Guerchon, senior vice president of employee services at San Francisco-based Riverbed.

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Ask human resources professionals, employment attorneys or savvy business owners for advice on keeping a company out of legal trouble when it comes to harassment in the workplace, and they share the same simple advice:

Mike Guerchon, senior vice president of employee services at San Francisco-based Riverbed.

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Mike Guerchon, senior vice president of employee services at San Francisco-based Riverbed, points to several reasons his company lands on many “top companies to work for” lists.

“Welcoming everyone, and respecting their differences, is simply a great working practice,” said Guerchon, whose technology company specializes in improving the performance of networks and networked applications.

Guerchon said Riverbed, which employs about 2,700 employees around the world, has one key advantage in putting this practice into play.

“Having an organization where you have a lot of diversity is an exceptionally positive advantage,” Guerchon said. “We have people from some 20 different countries in this building.”

The first step to ensuring employees are sensitive to the beliefs of such a diverse group is to set a good policy right from the get-go, he said.

“Make it part of your orientation,” Guerchon said. “You have to provide the right training, tools and culture so your policy can really work.”

Deb Keary points to one powerful reason such policies that work to prevent harassment: the law.

Keary, vice president of human resources for the Society for Human Resource Management, noted that offering written guidelines can help keep a company out of legal trouble.

“But a better reason to have these policies is that you want a civil, respectful workplace where people have a good time,” said Keary, whose organization represents 266,000 members all over the world from its headquarters in Alexandria, Va. “If there’s harassment in the workplace, the person who’s the object is certainly not having a good time, nor are the people watching it happen.”

A written policy will serve a guideline, and training seminars can reinforce that positive behavior, said Joyce Margulies, owner of Margulies Employment Law Consulting in Memphis, Tenn.

“One person’s judgment might be very different from another’s,” she said. “So these guidelines help.

“That said, you can’t have a rule for everything. You don’t have a rule that says, ‘Don’t spit in the coffeepot,’ but if someone did that and you were the company’s leader, you’d have to do something.”

That’s why it’s a good idea to set general standards of behavior in such policies, she said.

And you need to make sure you’re living up to those standards yourself, said Diane Stahl, owner of Urban Roots in Denver.

The entrepreneur started her small-space urban garden store and landscape company 11 years ago with a few employees and a whole lot of determination.

“Setting an example is so important, and that means apologizing if you’ve slipped up yourself,” said Stahl, who asks every employee to review the company’s policies annually.

“You might be unpopular, but you have to call people on things like jokes that aren’t appropriate for the workplace or bullying behavior,” she said. “You do it because you have to protect your staff, and you have to protect the business.”

Like Stahl, Guerchon said that too many people assume workplace harassment is always sexual in nature.

“It’s a huge melting pot here of ages and religions and cultures,” Guerchon said. “So you have to be sensitive. For instance, you shouldn’t walk down to a floor of engineers and say, ‘That food you’re cooking sure smells funny.’”

Even with the best training, issues will pop up, and it’s imperative to investigate and deal with them quickly, Keary said.

Many issues can be solved with a simple conversation, she said, using casual contact as an example. Telling an employee that hugging others makes some uncomfortable may be all it takes to solve a problem, she said.

“They may just be ‘huggy’ and have had no idea that they were making anyone uncomfortable,” she said.

At a good company, the employee who is uncomfortable should not be afraid to speak up, Guerchon said.

“We’re lucky that at Riverbed, we trust our leaders,” he said. “We trust them because they lead by example. And I’d tell any entrepreneur, if they lead by example, the rest of it is all mechanics.”

Tips to avoid legal trouble:

Joyce Margulies, owner of Margulies Employment Law Consulting in Memphis, Tenn., suggests that every company, no matter the size, ensure that each employee has a written policy that details the company’s expectations. A good policy should:

• Explain that a hostile work environment will not be tolerated, and give the employee examples of incidents that create such an environment. For example, making jokes of a sexual or racial nature, displaying posters that could be construed as offensive or using abusive language.

• A policy should explain the two types of sexual harassment. One creates a hostile environment by making the offended party uncomfortable with the words or actions of others. The other, quid pro quo, is the abuse of power by a supervisor. In other words, if a boss tells an employee, “You’ll get that promotion if you sleep with me,” power has been abused.

• A good policy will spell out the penalties of creating a hostile environment. It must detail the consequences of ignoring the company’s rules.

• Each policy must include a statement that prohibits retaliation for making complaints against an employee in the company, no matter how high ranking the individual in question.

Useful sites for more information

For more information about specific laws on workplace harassment in your state, or for general guidelines, a plethora of resources can help guide you through the sometimes murky legal waters. Here are a few:

• The American Bar Association section of labor and employment law recommends consulting an attorney for questions on legal matters. To find help in your state, visit the American Bar Association site by clicking here.

• For information on basic human rights and prevention of workplace harassment, visit the American Civil Liberties Union by clicking here.

• National groups that represent human resources professionals provide plentiful information on prevention of harassment in the workplace. Visit sites for the Professionals in Human Resources Association (click here), the Society for Human Resource Management (click here) or the National Human Resources Association (click here).